


If I Were Alive

by kirani



Series: Czernsgiving (Noah Week) [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Anxiety, Depression, Haunting, Inspired by Just Like Heaven (2005), M/M, Not Really Character Death, alive!Noah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21627607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirani/pseuds/kirani
Summary: Noah moves into a charming bungalow only to find it’s already occupied, er, well, haunted.Written for Czernsgiving Day 1: i was more / make do with less /if i were alive
Relationships: Noah Czerny/Richard Gansey III
Series: Czernsgiving (Noah Week) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558759
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Czernsgiving 2019 A Noah Week





	If I Were Alive

**Author's Note:**

> yep, i wrote a ghost au where the ghost isn’t noah. deal with it.  
> i promise there's no actual character death, more notes at the end if you'd like a small spoiler

Noah was pretty sure, no, he was entirely sure, that the house he was renting was haunted. 

It was an old bungalow on the coast, charming if dusty, and it was definitely haunted. But at least the ghost was polite. 

“Sorry to bother you,” the ghost asked, a vague shape in the corner of Noah’s eye that disappeared when he looked directly at it. “Would you mind pouring me some coffee?”

“Do ghosts drink coffee?” Noah asked, his own mug clutched in his hands.

“Well, no, but I like the smell.”

“Alright.”

As they sat with their coffee mugs, Noah’s in his hand and the ghost’s on the coffee table, he asked questions and Noah answered. He told the ghost about his sisters and his parents and how they didn’t understand his need for solitude and peace after all that had happened to him. 

“What happened?” The ghost asked. 

“Too much to explain over a cup of coffee. But I feel better here. I can write and think and heal. It’s good.”

“I’m glad,” the ghost agreed. “I think things happened to me, too, but I don’t remember.”

“I’m sorry. Are you healing, too?”

“I’m not sure.” The sound was a faint whisper and Noah felt the ghost slip away. 

Another time, the ghost asked why Noah had picked his house. 

“I like how it feels, it’s homey and warm.”

“That’s why I liked it too,” came the reply. “When I lived here, it was summer. It’s winter now and I wonder where I am.”

“Are you not dead?”

“I’m not sure.”

Noah hummed but no explanation came. He pondered this poor, dead ghost, never sure who he was or why he was dead and haunting a house he lived in for a summer. He wished he could save him somehow, though that was a silly thought. 

As the winter wore on, the ghost spent more and more time visiting with Noah. 

“Don’t you get lonely out here alone?”

“I have you,” Noah said. 

“I’m not good company. It’s not like when I was alive.” 

“I like your company.”

“You don’t even know my name.”

Oh. Noah hadn’t even thought to ask. “What’s your name?”

“Gansey.” The reply whispered through the kitchen. 

“Just Gansey?”

“That’s all there is.” 

Noah felt the ghost leave the room in a draft of warm air. 

“I’m Noah,” he told the empty room. 

Gansey didn’t come around again for a couple of days and Noah missed him. He wasn’t kidding when he said that he liked Gansey’s company and now he wandered listlessly from room to room, looking for him. He was torn between hoping Gansey has found his own peace and crossed on to the other side and wishing he would return. 

“I miss you, Gansey. Will you come back?” he whispered to the empty living room.

“You miss me?” The voice he’d missed rang out. “I was only in the attic.” 

“Oh,” Noah blinked. “I didn’t know there was an attic.”

Gansey laughed, then, and it was the most beautiful sound. Noah wanted to make him laugh every day. 

“Of course there’s an attic! How are you supposed to have a haunted house without an attic for your ghost to bang around in?”

“Is that what this is?” Noah asked with a grin. “Am I being haunted?”

“What else would you call it? There’s a ghost in your house.”

Noah laughed softly and looked around, trying to spot a shimmer of mist or anything that would give away Gansey’s location. “You’re not very spooky.”

Gansey was quiet after that for a long moment, and Noah began to worry. 

“I’m sorry, was that impolite? I’m sure you’re a very good haunter.”

“I didn’t want to scare you. You looked like you needed a friend.”

“Oh, Gansey,” Noah sighed. “Do you need a friend? I’d very much like to be your friend.”

“I’d like that,” Gansey whispered like mist on a river. 

Gansey tried to take a corporeal shape a couple of times, mostly ending up a mist on the couch beside Noah, but he appreciated the sentiment. 

They watched TV together, drank coffee together, and wrote together, Gansey always a warm presence at his side. He’d even figured out how to cuddle up to Noah a little, pressing his misty form into his side. 

“I should be dead, too,” Noah said one day. “My best friend, well, I thought he was my best friend, he tried to kill me. In high school. It was a while ago. But it messed me up, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Gansey said, pressing into him more. 

“I thought I was okay, went to college, got a job, even tried to date, but the more I tried to fit into normal, the more anxious and depressed I became. So I became a writer. And then I moved out here. And I found you.”

“I’m sorry,” Gansey said again. “I don’t want to leave you. But I have to.”

Noah snapped his gaze to the shimmering patch of air beside him. “Don’t go, please don’t leave me alone. I’ve never felt so settled as when I’m with you.”

“I have to. It’s time for me to be alive again.” 

“What?” Noah choked out, tears clogging his throat. “I don’t understand.”

“Look me up,” Gansey said. “Please.”

The last word was barely a whisper and Noah dissolved into tears as he felt Gansey leave the house with a flicker of lights. He let himself cry for a while before picking up his phone and typing in one word: Gansey.

The search results showed a middle aged woman who had apparently run for office and a man who owned some businesses, but when he scrolled further, he found the same man and woman crying into a news camera relaying the fact that their son Richard “Dick” Gansery had become gravely ill and fallen into a coma. 

He read through the articles and watched a few videos of Richard and his sister Helen from political events and, sure enough, it was the same voice that had kept him company all winter. 

“Gansey,” he muttered to the empty house. “What happened?”

When he awoke in the morning, his phone still open to the last article he’d read about the Gansey family, he refreshed the page. A new article showed up immediately. 

_Richard Gansey III awakens from coma after six months_

Noah stared at the page before grabbing his coat and keys and darting from his house. Their house. He had to find Gansey.

By the time he found the hospital in the news article, it was dark out. He’d driven for hours to get there and certainly visiting hours were over. But when he asked the nurse at the front desk, she rang up to the room and he was let in. 

“Noah!” Gansey cried when he entered the room. 

The young man on the hospital bed was gaunt and frail in the way only the infirm could be, but his eyes were sparkling with joy. 

“We’ll let you two have a moment,” said Mrs. Gansey, ushering her husband and daughter from the room. 

Noah dropped wordlessly into the chair beside Gansey’s bed. He stared at the other man, shocked and confused. 

“Is it really you?” Noah asked at last. 

Gansey grinned. “I was worried you wouldn’t find me. But you did.”

“Of course I did, I missed you as soon as you were gone,” Noah said with a sad smile. “I just don’t understand what happened.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t explain more, I was so foggy there.” 

“And now?”

“I think I know, now,” Gansey nodded. “I was very sick, and my spirit or consciousness or whatever you want to call it, it went back to the last place it was happy. Your house. And you were there.”

“I was there,” Noah echoed back. He reached out for Gansey’s hand, covering it with his own on the thin hospital blanket.

“I’m so glad you were there,” Gansey whispered. His voice was the same as the disembodied voice in the house and hearing it come from his lips was intoxicating. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d needed to hear that voice again. Gansey turned his hand over and laced his fingers through Noah’s. 

Noah felt his cheeks heat. “Are you going to be okay now? Now that you’re out of the coma?” 

Gansey nodded, his own cheeks pinkening. “The doctors said I’ll make a full recovery.”

“That’s good. That’s really good.” Noah licked his lips, wondering how to continue. “When you’re released, would you like to, um, could I, well, would you want to come back?”

Gansey’s mouth dropped open. “Really?” 

Noah smiled and nodded. “It’s not home without you, Gansey.”

“Can I kiss you?” Gansey asked suddenly, the words chasing each other out of his mouth. Noah was nodding before he even realized he wanted to, leaning over onto the bed and kissing Gansey’s dry lips. 

When he drew back, Noah didn’t go far, standing over the bed and clinging tightly to Gansey’s fingers. 

“I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Gansey smiled and squeezed his fingers. “Me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> spoiler: Gansey is a ghost in Noah's house but he is really just in a deep coma and his spirit is wandering, like in the movie "Just Like Heaven". He awakens from the coma and Noah finds him (no attempted body snatching like in the movie)
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'm trying to write a little something at least for every day of Czernsgiving, though some may be drabbles. Come follow me on [tumblr](https://blueseyforthesoul.tumblr.com/) if that's your thing.


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